Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, as we reported earlier, issued a press statement to debunk advertisements from VRG about their “Asaan Mobile Accounts” With Jazz & SCO. Regulator in its statement said that it has not yet issued a Commencement Certificate to VRG for Commercial Operations of AMA Scheme in Pakistan.
VRG, to clarify its position has now said that it didn’t say anything about commercial launch of services (in Pakistan or in AJK & GB or Pakistan). “We have intentionally avoided the words “Launch” and “Commencement of operations” and only talked about readiness and being commercially operational.
VRG said that they claimed the readiness only after getting PTA’s nod.
“Since we started the pilot phase on PTA’s direction, the people of Pakistan have opened our 110,000 AMA accounts and completed more than 3.2 million transactions, all free of cost”, said the company to clarify that the pilot was run only after PTA’s consent.
Not to mention, VRG has been bearing all these costs for all these activities to help poor people and satisfy PTA’s requirements under the law and the license conditions.
“VRG has not invoiced any of its business partners for these transactions and will not do so without getting a Commencement Certificate from PTA”, said VRG.
Below is what VRG had to say about the ordeal:
The Financial inclusion scheme is on initiative of SBP from whom we already have a license and Final Authorization (Commencement Certificate) since April 9th, 2020. It would have been appropriate if PTA had consulted SBP prior to issuing the press release and causing VRG, the AMA Scheme and SBP’s initiative an irreparable loss and damage, said the statement issued by VRG.
In addition, please consider the plight of over 100,000 poor people who had opened AMA accounts (50,000 with JazzCash) on 12 plus banks before 14th August (even before the 14th August Ads).
We understand PTA in this regard has issued a press release and advised the public at large and our business partners to stop using AMA Scheme without even allowing us an opportunity of being heard or waiting for our feedback and reply to its own given deadline of three and half hours.
This is not only illegal and contrary to the provisions of Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organization) Act, 1996 and Article 10-A of the Constitution of Pakistan, but against all just and fair norms of the society. PTA punished us without giving us opportunity of being heard or defending our position.
VRG again assures PTA that we will not launch the commercial operations till the time PTA formally issues us the Commencement Certificate and we will continue to cooperate with PTA and will try our best to meet PTA’s requirements to its satisfaction.
We again request PTA not to stop AMA Scheme and discomfit over 110,000 customers having AMA Accounts.
Profit magazine of PakistanToday covered this same story and i accidentally bumped into it. just compared the quality of the article on both sites and man oh man the proverbial “night and day” difference just couldn’t sum up the stark quality difference that I felt, have a look : profit(dot)pakistantoday(dot)com(dot)pk/2020/08/15/vrg-loses-patience-with-red-tape-to-release-operational-readiness-ads-on-independence-day/
Jo PTA do nambri kr raha hai in case of DBL woh to isme kahi mentioned hi nai hai lol